Pleasure near the Port: Spaces and Legacies of Notorious Entertainment Culture in 20th-Century Rotterdam

A port city, as the cliché goes, brings together international flows of people, goods, ideas and practices. Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ principal port city, fulfilled this role expertly in 2021, although not merely in terms of the staggering amount of cargo tonnage and containers that are being handled by its maritime industrial complex, and that continue to secure Rotterdam a spot among the world’s largest and busiest ports. In 2021, Rotterdam also hosted the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, presumably thanking this significant cultural honor to its image of “modern, cool city with a maritime labor ethos” and its “special story and unmistakable decisiveness,” according to the Dutch event producers. The port city’s role as cultural host city should also be considered in light of other well-known events that have utilized the maritime urban setting to their benefit and vice versa, such as Rotterdam’s 2001 designation of European Capital of Culture, or the city’s long-running, annual Wereldhavendagen [‘World Port Days’] that have traditionally aimed to bridge business and societal interests in showcasing and promoting port activities. As recent scholarship asserts, contemporary port cities have become go-to destinations for hosting all kinds of festivals and mega events, with waterfront areas especially singled out for delivering on their post-industrial regeneration potential in the process.